The Rings of Power - Season 1, Part 1

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What if Galadriel’s journey was more about inner discovery than epic battles? Join us as we celebrate a milestone—our 100th episode of Project Geekology—with our special guest Rich, a passionate listener who suggested our new series focus, The Rings of Power. Rich shares his creative Mets-themed parody of "Who Let the Dogs Out," inspired by his love for the team, while we recount the rejuvenating experience of Anthony's staycation. We promise a lively discussion that interweaves personal stories, imaginative theories, and fresh perspectives on Middle-Earth.

Together, we embark on a journey through The Rings of Power, exploring its grand visuals and complex narratives. We compare the series with House of the Dragon, reflecting on their storytelling nuances and audience expectations. Our conversation delves into Galadriel's character, examining her evolution from a battle-hardened warrior to the wise figure we know. The cultural dynamics in Númenor and the Southlands add intrigue to our discussion, alongside the enchanting friendship between Elrond and Durin, and the mysterious identity of the Stranger.

Prepare for an engaging exploration of fictional universes that will entertain and enlighten both long-time fans and newcomers. From the ambitious storytelling of The Rings of Power to an intriguing theory about the Avatar: The Last Airbender universe, there's something for everyone. Whether it's the breathtaking landscapes, the powerful musical themes, or the strong character dynamics, this episode offers a rewarding experience for those eager to uncover the layers of these beloved stories.

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Anthony's Twitter: https://twitter.com/odysseyswow
Dakota's Twitter: https://twitter.com/geekritique_dak

Instagram:
https://instagram.com/projectgeekology?igshid=1v0sits7ipq9y

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https://www.youtube.com/@projectgeekology

Geekritique (Dakota):
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBwciIqOoHwIx_uXtYTSEbA

Twitch (Anthony):
https://www.twitch.tv/odysseywow

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to episode 100 of Project Geekology 100
episodes.
We've had our highs and ourlows, but we have made it to 100
episodes.
I am one half of your host,anthony, and joining me, as
always, is Dakota and Anthony.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
We've had our highs and lows.
What is this?
A high or a low?

Speaker 1 (00:20):
This is a high because I mean, look, we've made
it to 100 episodes.
When did you say at whatepisode count?
Did you say that podcastsusually end?

Speaker 2 (00:28):
I think the average podcast, if I remember correctly
, is it ends after about sevenepisodes, so I think we've
passed that quite a bit.
But yeah, 100 episodes.
It's crazy.
We haven't gotten paid yet.
Like when is the paycheckcoming in?

Speaker 1 (00:44):
I'm going to call it in.

Speaker 2 (00:44):
You know You're going to call them in Anthony.
We're joined by a special guestthis week.
He's a fan of the show.
He's been listening to us for awhile.
He gave us the idea for thispodcast series that we're going
to be covering.
Starting this episode Guys meet.

Speaker 3 (00:59):
Rich.
Hey guys, anthony Dakota thanksfor having me.
Really excited to be on theshow, ready to talk about some
rings of power over here and uh,you know, just finally I'm glad
.

Speaker 1 (01:11):
I get to celebrate on such a momentous occasion with
you guys.
Yes, yes, like Rich said, weare covering rings of power.
We're going to be setting it upinto.
Each season is going to be setup, set up into two episodes.
We're going to cover the firstfour episodes in episode one and
then the last four episodes inepisode two, and so and that's
going to be the same thing forseason two.
So just to kind of break it up,give us a little bit more time

(01:34):
to to really talk about and diveinto the series, because Dakota
and I we kind of talked aboutit.
We thought that a series likethis, and even series in the
future, they deserve more thanjust like a one hour episode to
cover it and I think we kind ofrealized that specifically when
we covered shogun yes that wejust didn't have enough time to

(01:55):
dive into the meat of theseseries because it was such an
impressive work and, I think,moving forward.

Speaker 2 (02:01):
This is probably you know, unless it's like a six
episode series or a mini seriesor whatever, breaking series
into chunks while we discuss, itwill probably better our
discussion and allow us to talkabout individual topics a little
bit more.
So I'm excited about theprospect and for those of you
who don't know, we've coveredLord of the Rings topics in the
past.
We have a six episode series onthe extended edition lord of

(02:24):
the rings films.
That's literally as long as theextended edition films.
That was way before we had likeepisode caps and all that, but
that's a really fun listen rich.
Did you ever get to listen?

Speaker 3 (02:34):
to this.
Yeah, I love those I I there'snothing like.
You know, my wife wascomplaining, but she's like I
don't understand how you canlisten to a podcast that's
almost as long as the originalwork, or possibly longer
sometimes, and I'm just that'sjust how it is.
You know, that's almost as longas the original work, or
possibly longer sometimes, andthat's just how it is you know,
that's how it be.

Speaker 2 (02:47):
That's how it is.
There's more to talk about in afilm like Lord of the Rings
than it actually shows us onscreen, which is surprising
because it's such a long film.
But I'm hoping that we don'tfall into the same trap with the
Rings of Power, because youknow we have capped ourselves at
around an hour per episode atthis point.
So we're going to get into themeat of the rings of power very

(03:08):
soon.
But before we begin, Rich, whathave you been up to this past
week?

Speaker 3 (03:11):
I was talking to you guys a little bit about before
we started the show.
I have been working on a littleproject.
So in 1999, when the Mets madeit to the playoffs, the radio
Z100 here in New York released asong called who Let the Mets
Out, which was a parody of thebaja men's classic who let the
dogs out classic this one wasinterspersed with different

(03:31):
clips of the mets being, youknow, like successful moments
throughout the season.

Speaker 2 (03:35):
So oh, so it was like a video thing no, so it
actually came out.

Speaker 3 (03:38):
I think they had a video, but it came out as like
audio on the radio oh, I see,you would just hear like the
music under like you know, oh,doggy, I have a bone and while
you hear like Mike Piazzahitting a home run.

Speaker 2 (03:49):
Oh, okay, yeah, I got you.

Speaker 3 (03:51):
So I did it about 10 years ago.
I did an update version andthen my son has been begging me
to do.
He's nine.

Speaker 2 (04:02):
He got into the Mets this year went to like 40 games,
so he asked me, can you do this?

Speaker 3 (04:06):
You're crazy, yeah, it took a long time.

Speaker 2 (04:08):
40 games that's amazing, but it's worth it.

Speaker 3 (04:11):
Now on the way to the games.
You know we'd listen to who letthe Mets out with an updated
roster.
So it also drills all theplayers into his head.
It's just like you know, likeokay, it's like passive mind
control.

Speaker 2 (04:21):
Really, it's definitely propaganda of the
highest order, but I love it.
I love it.
Yeah, wow, there is no war inBa Sing Se Guys.
Anthony, what have you been upto?

Speaker 1 (04:32):
Well, I have been kind of like having a bit of a
staycation.
I took this week off.
I know that I was just onvacation visiting family up in
Tennessee, but now this week I'mkind of hanging out having a
staycation and taking care ofthings at home and it was
actually like a vacation, fromyour vacation, exactly, you know
.
And then I had like a transitionperiod where I worked like a

(04:53):
week and then went back onvacation.
But that time off, brother,absolutely yeah, I'm using my
PTO and you know it doesn't moveover to the next year, so it's
kind of like a use it or lose it.
So I'm using it.
And you know, what was reallycool on the day of recording is
that Warcraft had their 30thanniversary direct, and so I

(05:16):
kind of looked a little bit intothat.
They announced the nextexpansion for that whole saga
that they're doing, and so thenext expansion that they're
doing is called World ofWarcraft Midnight and that one's
actually adding player homes soI guess you can like set up
like a home now and wow, wait,wait, hold up, hold up, hold up
they like.

Speaker 2 (05:32):
A year ago they announced three expansions.
Is this part of that okay?
This is one of those, so thisis the second of those and
they're adding player homes yes,yes okay, so you get to like
Animal Crossing it a little bityeah, you get to set up a home
and stuff.

Speaker 1 (05:47):
I wonder how you know .
They didn't go too much intodetail about it, but they told
like, hey, you're going to beable to you know, kind of set up
a home, and I guess this islike something that a lot of
people have been asking about.
They also announced that I knowthat you and I were talking
about World of Warcraft Classicand how far they're going.

(06:07):
They're going to go into Mistsof Pandaria.

Speaker 2 (06:10):
I don't think that's classic WoW.

Speaker 1 (06:11):
personally, I personally don't think.
I think that Cataclysm and onis kind of modern day WoW, I
think Past.

Speaker 2 (06:20):
Wrath of the Lich King.
That's it.

Speaker 1 (06:23):
Yeah, you're right.

Speaker 2 (06:24):
That's it, that's classic.

Speaker 1 (06:25):
WoW.

Speaker 2 (06:26):
Anyway, who am I?
Blizzard needs their money.

Speaker 1 (06:29):
I think that they also said something about some
of the servers in WoW Classicare going to be moving over to.
They're going to shift over tobecome Burning Crusade Classic,
so they're setting up moreservers so that they can like
just continue to like move tothe future.
I don't dude, I don't know whatthey're doing, man, it's so

(06:51):
crazy yeah, I'm a littleconfused, but that's I mean.

Speaker 2 (06:54):
Cool for for people who are actively not playing
current wow but are looking torelive the glory days of mists
of pandaria, I'm happy for youguys.
Or burning crusade, whatever,very cool.
What else have you been up to,if anything?

Speaker 1 (07:07):
so also another thing that dropped is they brought
back overwatch 1.0.
So the day that overwatch 1came out, they released the 1.0
like day one oh yeah, so I canplay.

Speaker 2 (07:22):
I can play hanzo with his scattershot.

Speaker 1 (07:24):
Yes hanzo, with the scattershot, with the the
original it's the original fourroles that they remember.
There used to be a defense rolein the game and like you could
pick, like six winstons or sixtorbjorns and stuff yeah, I
remember those days I wasgetting like 17 to 20 kills per
game just with scattershot alone.
It was amazing, beautiful soit's both fun and a little

(07:46):
frustrating at the same time,because the game is completely
different.
The game back then was moreteam-based.
Now you can do a little bitmore like solo.
You can carry a little bit morelike if you if you're a really
good player, you can carry a bitmore.
But like in that game, dude,you can't dive into a team by
yourself or you're just going toget melted.

(08:10):
And I went back and I startedplaying characters that I never
played when the game first cameout.
Like I was mostly just like aLucio one trick and then I
played a little bit of Junkrat,and so it's weird, like seeing
how those characters operated,like back then.
Or, like you know, I would messaround with them a little bit,
but I never like played them toomuch.
Or, like you know, I would messaround with them a little bit,
but I never like played them toomuch.
And it's so weird, like youknow, the way that diva plays
and then symmetra being thesupport symmetra again and her

(08:32):
having that whole teleport thingand then mercy having her mass
res.
Do I?

Speaker 2 (08:37):
forget she doesn't have mass res anymore.

Speaker 1 (08:39):
Yeah, it's crazy how much they buff and like change
characters over time, just liketweak characters slowly and
slowly until they're completelydifferent, like play styles yeah
, it went from like being ateam-based moba type game to,
like you know, this like 5v5kind of brawl it out, sometimes
a game mode where, like you know, you could have one person that

(09:01):
takes down like two to threepeople if, like, you're skilled
enough.
But yeah, so I've been messingaround with that.
Like that.
It's been interesting, goingback in time and and doing that
and just kind of like enjoyingsome time off.
How about you, dakota?
Have you been working on any ofyour projects?
I know that you, you finishedyour osha 30.
It was osha 30, right I did.

Speaker 2 (09:20):
I finished my osha 30 .
It was a.
It took literally 30 hours.
Then I took I had to take awhole bunch of other little
stuff after that that I'm prettymuch done with, but yeah, so as
far as like actual work goes,I'm doing pretty good with that.
You guys want to hear a theorythat I've concocted for the
Avatar universe, likespecifically the last airbender

(09:41):
universe.
Yeah, so all right.
So this, how do do I say it?
This is something that I'm notgoing to like broadly talk about
online but, considering ouraudience probably won't bleed
into the avatar fan base.
I don't think this theory isgoing to go anywhere, but I will
discuss it when I release mybig avatar timeline, because it
has a lot to do with the originsof the world as it is basically

(10:04):
.
So do so.
Do you guys remember?
I'm guessing both of you haveseen Legend of Korra?

Speaker 3 (10:08):
Yes.

Speaker 2 (10:09):
And you remember the two episodes where they go into
the first avatar Wan, correct?

Speaker 1 (10:15):
Yes, yeah.

Speaker 2 (10:16):
So that's a pretty big moment in the show where it
kind of discusses how the avatar, like Rava, met with this
character named Wan andeventually had to combine forces
to defeat Vaatu, the spirit ofchaos and evil and darkness and
stuff.
But what I found wasinteresting in that episode?
I went back to it because I waslooking specifically to see if

(10:39):
they had shown a map of theworld, because you probably have
seen it plenty of times.
You probably don't remember itoff the top of your head, but
the map of Avatar is veryspecific.
You know there's the mainland.
On the top right there's thenorth and the south poles that
are separated from the mainland,there's a series of islands to
the west that make up the FireIslands, and then you know the

(11:00):
air temples are north, south,east and west.
So I was wondering if they hadshown or showcased the map of
the Avatar world up until thatpoint.
And I watched both episodes andI realized no, they didn't.
And the reason I wondered thiswas because in my head I was
thinking well, there's this newvideo game coming out of Avatar
3000 years after the firstAvatar, avatar 1.

(11:22):
And it's supposed to be.
It's supposed to take placeduring a great ice age where
there's a lot of seismicactivity.
And I'm wondering well, maybethis is how the Fire Islands
come to be, maybe the FireIslands didn't exist in like
Avatar Wan's era, and I thinkthere's actually more to it than
just that.
So I started like watching theepisode and like getting some

(11:43):
details down.
And this is a time period whereall humans live on the backs of
lion turtles, so they don'thave need for boats.
And if you watch those episodes, there are no boats in the
entirety of the two episodes,not even in, like the war
montages that occur at the endof the episode that showcase
what the four nations are like.

(12:04):
Warring over that eventuallykills Juan.
So there's no boats at thistime period.
But there is the moment whereJuan travels with Rava to the
South Portal, which is in theSouth Pole.
So he, there are no boats inthis universe, but they somehow
travel on the back of, you know,juan, spirit animal or like
animal guide, without a boat.

(12:25):
And I'm wondering, I wonder ifthis is almost like a pangea
event where, like, the entireworld exists in this huge
continent at this time period.
And then this game that'scoming out in a couple years,
that's tentatively called icewars, which discusses ice ages,
which discusses seismic activity, or if that's the separation of
the world, because there's noother way for, you know, wan and

(12:48):
rava to have reached the southpole unless it was connected to
the mainland.
Unless I just caught a big plothole and I'm just like
connecting crazy dots, that's mycurrent theory is that, like
the, the game that's coming out,the triple, a game in a couple
years, is going to involve somesort of ice age that's brought
upon by tectonic shift, and I'mreally excited about seeing if

(13:09):
I'm right about that the creatoris going to listen to this
podcast and be like you're notsupposed to think of these
things, have they?

Speaker 3 (13:17):
announced that the game is.
Have they done stuff like thatwhere the game is canon?

Speaker 2 (13:21):
oh it's, it's canton.
Yeah it's, it's being.
It's it's not only beingproduced in that universe, but
it's being funded by paramountand avatar studios and it's it's
like the they're spending themajority of their like budget in
terms of gaming on this, likeip.
So as far as like canon withinthe avatar legends universe,

(13:42):
it's pretty succinct.
They like almost everything ishard canon up to this point.
There's comics, there's novelsand there's a tabletop rpg
that's like that has addedplenty to the canon.
So I I don't have any likereason to believe that this
isn't supposed to be canonthat's.

Speaker 3 (13:58):
That's gonna be really awesome.
I'm looking forward to thatnice.
It's like the jedi games.
I love that those have becomecanon in the oh yeah yeah.

Speaker 2 (14:07):
So with that out of the way, I'm sorry for the the
tangent.
For those of you who haven'tseen any avatar or legend of
korra, that probably made nosense to you, but hopefully our
topic at hand will make sense toyou.
We're discussing the first fourepisodes, in no particular
order, of the rings of power.
So I guess, before we do any ofthe individual spoilery

(14:29):
thoughts on these episodes, howabout we discuss the show as
we're approaching it as a whole?
So we'll start with you, richie.
We're talking a little bitabout your experience with the
rings of power and how you feltcoming back into the series.
You know, before we startedthis podcast yeah.

Speaker 3 (14:45):
So, as I was saying before, you know it's weird
because I have not rewatchedthings way too many times.
So I watched it once and then,before the second season came
out, I watched the first seasonagain.
I kind of had the same feelingsabout it.
I'm not really that well-versedin Cimmerillion.
I didn't know a lot of thecharacters I'd heard of new

(15:11):
menorah.
I like how they were their r's,but I didn't really know much
about I like anyone there, youknow, and it just felt like a
lot of there were almost toomany characters for me to kind
of attach.
Appreciate attach to any of them.
Then I watched the secondseason and I really liked the
second season and then I wentback when I found out the great
news that would be coming on theshow.
I went back to re-watch thefirst four to make sure I could
separate everything in my headand I like it so much more I
don't know if it's justinteresting going in with more

(15:33):
knowledge into it.
I mean, I mean, I'm somebodywho forces my son to do a full,
extended rewatch in one day andhave meals punctuated along the
day to make sure I I bribe himinto staying into it, you know.
So I do remember when the twotowers came out around christmas
.
All the way back in 2000,whatever, because I'm ancient, I
, my friend, I had convinced myfriends that we were we remember

(15:55):
that too, yeah yeah, dakota andI, we saw those in the movie
theater we were children, but wesaw christmas eve
my friends and I are all hangingout.
We're older and I was like, sowe're going to still go see Lord
of the Rings, right?
And they're like, no man,there's like four feet of snow.
And I was like, forget you guys.
And I walked all the way thereand watched it anyway.
So I've been a fan of you.

(16:17):
Know, I read the books, I readthe little lost.
So I don't know.
I mean, as a teacher, I tell mystudents you have to reread all
the time.
I'm telling you the rewatch.
It changed my perspective on itcompletely.

Speaker 2 (16:34):
Excellent, Anthony.
What were your thoughts goingback into these four episodes?

Speaker 1 (16:38):
It was interesting because you can see the setup
for a lot of these charactersthat you eventually see down the
line, like the Harfoot.
You can tell that those areancestors of hobbits, you know,
right, and a lot of thesecharacters.
Yeah, you were talking aboutNumenor, which eventually goes
along the lines.

(16:58):
That's the line that Aragorn isa part of.
He's one of the Dunedain, whichis part of that kingdom, and so
it's really cool seeing thepast and certain characters that
I had seen also like that werelike in Shadow of Mordor,
celebrimbor, dude his name isCelebrimbor.

(17:22):
Yes, yes, like he's the maincharacter of that game and so
it's weird seeing him in thislight as kind of like a little
bit into like politics.
Elrond he didn't surprise me atall, like he's always been kind
of like a politician and that'show he was shown throughout the
Lord of the Rings.
But you know, seeing the setupof these characters from like

(17:44):
down the line Galadriel also,and like her kind of having like
this warrior background andthen what she like eventually
becomes in Lord of the Rings.

Speaker 2 (17:54):
So you know it's interesting seeing these
characters years and yearsbefore yeah, I had a similar
experience as both of you whenthis was first coming out.
This was also coming out at thesame time as House of the
Dragon, hbo's House of theDragon and for me that was the

(18:14):
far superior show.
It was just like week in, weekout.
I was just floored by House ofthe Dragon and just a little bit
perplexed by Rings of Power,and eventually I dropped off
after episode five of Rings ofPower, not because I didn't like
it, it just wasn't grabbing me,and I think I don't really
remember what I was doing atthat point, but it just didn't
feel like it was worth my timeup until that point Going into

(18:37):
the series.
I was very excited, though, andI think that that was what
really was.
The big issue was that itdidn't meet the excitement that
I had going into the seriesbecause, you know I I do read a
lot of tolkien so rich.
You were saying you hadn't readthe silmarillion.
I have read the silmarillion.
This has nothing to do withsilmarillion.
This is like even deeper thanthe silmarillion.

(18:58):
This is this is the appendicesof lord of the rings.
This is the history ofmiddle-earth which was, like
released by his son, christopher, like years after his death, in
a series of like just annotatednotes of Tolkien that he had
written over the course of like40 years or so, which is a
really cool thing.
But I've never even touched it.

(19:19):
I haven't gone into any of that.
So this was all new to me forthe most part.
I had you know bare bones ideasof like what Numenor was all new
to me.
For the most part, I had youknow bare bones ideas of like
what numenor was all about andgladriel's story going from you
know the first age into thesecond age and into the present
of lord of the rings.
But while I wasn't hugely intune with where these stories

(19:39):
were coming from or where theywere being sourced from, I was
understanding of the fact thatthey were truncating the you
know the second age of middleearth into this storyline and I
think that that bothered me tosome extent.
It doesn't really bother meanymore, but at the time when
this was coming out it was justlike at the back of my head like
man I know this isn't tolkienlore, even though I personally

(20:01):
didn't know the tol to thatextent.
So it kind of bothered me alittle bit and that's why I
dropped off.
I'm really excited to, you know, give this series another shot,
and watching these fourepisodes was really exciting for
me because, you know, withoutthe baggage of when it was
coming out and all that, it wasreally cool to be able to just

(20:23):
experience it with fresh eyes.
And, yeah, I think I got a lotmore out of it this time than I
did in the past.

Speaker 1 (20:29):
No, I totally agree, and the thing is is that you
kind of have to watch thisseries in a different light than
like Lord of the Rings.
You know, growing up justwatching Lord of the Rings over
and over, like throughout theyears, you know it really has
become one of those like it'slike like throughout the years,
you know it really has becomeone of those like it's like a
sacred trilogy, you know, andanything that falls short of

(20:49):
that quality is like kind oflike.
You know, and the thing is isthat there are elements and
aspects of the Hobbit that I doenjoy but it doesn't really come
close in terms of quality to meand so if you, if you re-watch
the Lord of the Rings series,are you also going to rewatch
the Hobbit trilogy?
No man when I say I'm doing aLord of the Rings we rewatch.

(21:10):
I'm just watching those three.
I know people who do watch theHobbit, I'm like why?

Speaker 2 (21:14):
bother.
Oh okay, you're that guy, I'mhere for the content put it in
my, put it in my veins that's,that's all I want.

Speaker 1 (21:25):
Okay, all right, that's fair.
Yeah, exactly, you know, if youenjoy it and, like I said,
there are aspects of it that Ialso enjoy, you know, it's just
there's certain things that Iwasn't a big fan of, but, like
you can tell that with rings ofpower that there is an attempt
to try to stray away from someof the things that stumbled the
hobbit a little bit and the showthat they're trying not to

(21:47):
overuse cg too much.
I mean, obviously they use it.
There's a lot that needs to bedone, like with cg.
It would just cost way too muchto like do without.
But you can see a lot of thepractical effects and the
practical scenes and I really dolike appreciate that a lot yeah
, you know, going into this, Iwas kind of floored by how much

(22:10):
I forgot about how good thisshow looks.

Speaker 2 (22:13):
It looks beautiful, like literally every shot is
just like wow, I can use that asa wallpaper.

Speaker 1 (22:19):
Wow, I wouldn't mind, you know, just being there, you
know dude that shot of numenor,like when they were coming up
on the ship first time.

Speaker 2 (22:26):
Like it was beautiful yeah, no, it was really cool.
There's a lot of just realstrong, solid beauty in this
series, whether it comes to, youknow, even like from like the
first age, like when they'reintroducing galadriel as a, as a
kid, and seeing the trees thatare glowing, that are providing
the light for the elves, and allthat.
It's just gorgeous and youcould tell that they did their

(22:47):
homework.
Like it's impossible to watchthis show and be like these guys
don't know anything abouttolkien, which you will hear a
lot of online.
So it's amazing what they wereable to accomplish.
But I want to talk a little bitabout the music, because there's
a lot of musical cues in thisthat I'm just like this is
really powerful, really powerful, and musical cues that I
remember from my one viewing ofthe first five episodes.

(23:09):
I think that's all I made itthrough that.
You know Galadriel's theme it'sjust like so powerful and it
plays all the time, but there'snot even like the only one.
There's plenty of music thatjust really rings true and it
feels lord of the rings e.

(23:29):
You know, it feels like thehoward shore score yeah from the
six movies that exist andthat's really cool, and I think
it was bear mccreary that didthe music for this.
He he's done a lot of likereally cool stuff in like the
geek community.
I believe he did some of themusic for God of War.
I think he did music forGodzilla, king of the Monsters.

Speaker 1 (23:48):
He's done some really cool stuff.
Hey, man, we've had that a fewtimes with some of the geeky
things that we've covered, thatyou know, like Howard Shore like
had like a staple kind of inLord of the Rings, but then,
like you also had like JohnWilliams, that he had a staple
in star wars, but then you alsohad a really good score and the
mandalorian, and that was notjohn williams right, that was

(24:10):
ludwig uh luring jorinson yeahyeah, jorinson is a prodigy,
honestly, like everything hetouches is gold.

Speaker 2 (24:17):
But what's amazing about mandalorian is that it
sounds good but it doesn't soundnecessarily like john williams.

Speaker 3 (24:24):
It doesn't sound john williams, it doesn't sound.

Speaker 2 (24:25):
John Williams-y, you know, and that's what makes
Ludwig's work on the Mandalorianand other shows around it so
cool, because it doesn't need torely on John Williams.
But I think what I like aboutthe Rings of Power is that it
sounds very Howard Shore-y, likeit sounds very Lord of the
Rings-y.
It sounds very Howard Shorey,like it sounds very Lord of the

(24:46):
Rings-y, and you could even beconfused as like confusing some
of the themes in the show forstuff that could appear in the
movies, and I think that that isso powerful.

Speaker 3 (24:54):
I thought it was the same guy.
So I don't actually track a lotof this stuff just because of
the style.
I actually thought, if I would,have been in like Cash Cab and
it would have been like a trueor false or false question.
I, I would, I would have bet, Iwould have bet, yeah, no, it's
howard short, true, and then hewould be like, oh sorry, and the
lights go down, sucks to suck,yeah yeah, so that that the

(25:18):
beauty of the show, bothvisually and musically, is
something that just beyond anycriticism, past that point, is
just flooring.

Speaker 2 (25:28):
It's you talk about like the money spent, and Amazon
, notably, spent a lot of moneyon this show.
I think it was like over thecourse of five seasons they were
, you know, willing to spendlike 500 million or something
like half a billion dollars onthe show, and if you break that
down, that's about as much moneyas they probably spent on the
first season of the acolyte andI'm a fan of the acolyte, but

(25:49):
this is like leagues above theacolyte in terms of just like
visualization and stuff likethat.
So it's amazing what they wereable to accomplish here.
Let's talk a little bit aboutlike characters and some of the
the different story threads thathaven't necessarily coalesced
yet, but we can kind of see apicture forming.
Let's start with Galadriel.
What are your thoughts onGaladriel, guys?

Speaker 1 (26:09):
she's interesting.
You know, like coming into this, I wasn't too sure, like you
know, like how I was gonna feelbecause, like I've seen how she
is in Lord of the Rings and soshe's so much different.
In Rings of Power, you know,she's portrayed to be a lot
younger and she's got a lot moreimpatience and she is like

(26:30):
battle hardened, and so it'sreally interesting to see how
she is and then if, likethroughout the series, we're
going to start seeing herdevelop a little bit more into,
or we're going to start seeingglimpses of the Galadriel that
we see in Lord of the Rings.

Speaker 2 (26:46):
Yeah, so like the Galadriel that you're talking
about is specifically like she'sa queen, but she's also like
known as being a witch of theforest and she kind of
exemplifies both of those thingsand you know just her like
extreme royal manner, but alsoin the fact that like she's able
to get into the fellowship'shead and all that, and you know
she's telling them glimpses oftheir future and like discerning

(27:08):
things of their heart that shecan't currently do in Lord of
the Rings, rings of Power, atleast we don't know that she can
.
So I think that that is a reallyit's going to be interesting
seeing how that develops.
But we see that Galadriel isalmost like a warrior, you know,
like she's like you said, she'sbattle-hardened.
She's been fighting this fightfor presumably hundreds of years
.
She's been searching for anyhints of Sauron because she

(27:30):
knows deep in her heart thatSauron's not gone.
He's in hiding somehow, andeven like the other elves in her
party, like they, they're readyto give up the hunt because
there's been no, you know, signof Sauron for ages right no sign
of orcs in years yeah, yeahrich.
What do you think of galadrieland her story arc over the
course of these first couple?

Speaker 3 (27:50):
episodes.
So you know, like anthony wassaying, I kind of know her more
as the woods elf, which you knowlike and her power there, and
even she's briefly in parts ofthe hobbit, the white council, I
think yeah is meeting there andeven there she's not.
I mean pardon the pun, butregarding this first arc, it's
very like joan of archie showingup and I didn't see that coming

(28:12):
to be honest, I didn't knowthat she was going to be.
You know, I, I basically knowfrom like the movies and my one
read of the book, but I didn'tgo deep into any appendices or
anything, so I didn't know thisside of her.
You know, I will say that Iguess I kind of understand the
other elves saying that you knowthey think she's a little kooky
for still believing thatsauron's out there.

(28:33):
But I don't know, maybe it'sjust, I don't think it's just
the knowledge of knowing.
I just think, like you know,they all know, sauron is is a
bad dude.
You know he's hanging out withmargarth over there and that's
not a good dude either.
And I'm just surprised thatthey're all so quick and maybe
it's because obviously a conceitof the show, right, they have
to tell us this quickly, theyhave to exposition this.

(28:55):
So okay we go into it and I mean, if you kind of think about it,
you know, like all of the lordof the rings media, we've seen
you go into it and you're like,yeah, I know there's a Sauron.
So there's one character whoright away is like, hey guys,
I'm pretty sure Sauron's stillalive.
And everyone else is like, nope, can't believe it.
And I think, as the viewer I'malmost, I know, I'm supposed to

(29:15):
forget that he exists, because Iknow what happens after.
But it makes the othercharacters look more like
buffoons and it makes her lookless petulant, you know.
But at first, like she's comingoff as very, very petulant and
very impatient, as anthony said.
But I agree with her, you know,it's like she's acting like a
jerk.
But I'm like, no, I, I get it.

Speaker 1 (29:34):
I mean she's right, you know yeah, with the meta
knowledge you're like no, listento her exactly, guys.

Speaker 2 (29:40):
Come on, you know yeah, I mean, I guess you could
look at it as like in the realworld, if there's just a guy
with, like you know, hiscontingents of troops trekking
through the adirondacks, saying,you know, I know the british
are still coming, I know thatthey're coming and it's, it's
been like hundreds of years likeI.

Speaker 1 (29:57):
I that's fair the brit brothers are coming that's
kind of what I like.

Speaker 2 (30:06):
I mean it's, it's funny.
The same, the same logic can beused for, like you know, going
back to like the acolyte for abrief moment.
The same, you know, everyone'slike.
Well, obviously, like it was ared lightsaber guy, like a bunch
of yada are killed.
It must be the sith, but likesith existed for a little what?
900 years.
At that point, that's likesaying the Vikings are coming,
like they're making a return so,yeah, I can see why some of the

(30:30):
the soldiers in her retinue arejust like eager to get be done
with this, and obviously there'sa huge reward waiting for them
back at home because they'regoing back to their homeland.
And it's a really, really coolscene when Galadriel capitulates
, she goes back to Lindon Lindonis the elf city that we're
visiting here and the kinggrants them the opportunity to

(30:54):
journey off back where they camefrom.
And it's a really cool visualthing, like I didn't know how
they were going to manage it,but it's just like the absence
of substance, as they're justdrifting off into the east and
and just seeing like the cloudsand the sky part to just like
this heavenly glow.
It's like literally pearlygates for them and they're all

(31:14):
just like on the cusp of thatportal into whatever is left,
like past middle earth, and she,just galadriel, she just cannot
do it, she can't make herselfleave at this point and I think
that that's such a cool thingand she jumps ship and you know,
eventually it lands and like ona raft with hal brand and all
that, and I think that is areally interesting little arc

(31:37):
and I think that that's partlylike where I lost the plot a
little bit past that point,because I wasn't a huge fan of
numenor specifically or like thepolitics and like the goings-on
of the people of numenor atthat point when I first watched
the series.
What are your thoughts onnumenor and, like the people in
the city, I didn't.

Speaker 3 (31:56):
So I'll be honest with you, I I I couldn't
understand.
I mean, it became obvious thatit was elves versus humans and
and there's kind of a sentimentrising here but at the same time
.
I think you're right.
I think what happened was I wasjust trying to wrap my brain
around this idea that you know,gladriel is supposed to be kind
of off her rocker and and she'sbelieving in something that

(32:17):
doesn't make sense anymore.
She jumps off, gets onto theraft and now, instead of like
going back and dealing with herstuff, then we go off to Numenor
and I was like what's going onhere?
So I this is when I think the bplot, or whatever you want to
call it, coming in here like soquickly intertwining, I I would
have.
I think it would have benefiteda little bit.
Again if you're a little bitmore uninformed.

(32:39):
I think that if you spent alittle bit more time with
Galadriel's reaction there, Iunderstand that numenor ends up
becoming a way for her to getwhere she needs to be, but I was
a little confused.
Pharazon has fantastic hair, Iwill say so.
I loved that and that's the thespeaker yeah, yeah, muriel's
cousin pharazon or pharazon

Speaker 2 (33:00):
something like that, yeah, and he always has this
like extremely cocky grin on hisface and it's like, it's like
lifting up his beard, it's likeit's a, really it's great hair,
very punchable face.

Speaker 3 (33:11):
He's very, he's, he's very the.

Speaker 2 (33:13):
The one thing that there's no getting around is
he's very, you know, immediately, like almost vaudevillian bad
guy, you know yeah, I, Ipersonally I I haven't really
seen much past this point, so Idon't know if he's a good guy or
not.
I just know that he is acurrent antagonist of galadriel.
So he's a bad guy to me, youknow.
But then so is the queen ofnumenor, so you know, and then

(33:35):
there's that whole plot.
But let's not get too boggeddown, anthony, you haven't
mentioned your thoughts onnumenor.
Before we jump away from it,Numenor.

Speaker 1 (33:43):
So it was interesting .
The city was beautiful, likehonestly, like the actual space
was amazing, but it was reallycool with some of the people
that were introduced.
I mean, dude, a huge characterin the Lord of the Rings
universe, was introduced inIsildur, so we know his story,

(34:07):
we know his story.
It's all his fault.
His fault.
Dude like Lord of the Ringswould not have happened if he
would have tossed that ring intothe fire.

Speaker 2 (34:11):
You know so right things are his fault, man things
are afoot and it's mostlyIsildur's fault and you know, a
lot of things are Isildur'sfault because you know he's like
in the naval I don't know whatit is, it's like a naval academy
sort of thing that he's tryingto yeah the seaguard.
Okay, yes, and he is like, whatis he even like longing for?

(34:34):
Is he longing for his home backin Numenor?
Or is he's longing to go toMiddle Earth?
What is his goal, I don't know.
Like he keeps getting likedaydreams while he's doing
something extremely importantand it ends up costing, like him
and his friends, like aposition on the ship that they
were, you know, at least hisfriends were trying to get on
for like their entire lives.
So it it's interesting rich.
You're being very quiet, so I'massuming we're entering spoiler

(34:56):
territory and I don't.
I don't want to know whathappens past that point.

Speaker 3 (35:01):
So I'll keep it safe, I'll keep it secret.
Yeah, well, next week we'lltalk about the latter half of
the season yeah, whenever youguys say something that I'm just
gonna say, I'll keep it safe,I'll keep it secret I like that.

Speaker 2 (35:13):
Okay, I I do like most of the cast that they
introduced in numenor.
I think they were interestingenough, if not just extremely
one-sided characters, and Ithink that is also like a
turnoff for me in some ways, butlike they all seem like I'm
supposed to be like the smartfather character or like the
wise father character.
I'm supposed to be thescholarly daughter character.

Speaker 3 (35:33):
So you get a lot of like characters.

Speaker 2 (35:35):
I'm excited to see how they get entwined in the
overall plot with Halbrand andGaladriel and all that going
forward.
But we'll talk about that in afuture episode.
Let's talk a little bit aboutwhat's happening in the
southlands.
What are the guys?
What are the characters names?

Speaker 3 (35:49):
I don't even remember bronwyn bronwyn is the, the
woman with the dark hair.
Her son is theo.
Yeah, and uh aranadir, I thinkis the elf aranadir.

Speaker 1 (36:00):
Yeah, aranadir is the the elf and you know, the cool
thing about the southlands isthat you know a lot of stuff
that we talk about is gonnaobviously trickle into lord of
the rings territories.
But it's interesting, like whatthe southlands are, like what
it is, what it becomes.
It becomes mordor dude.
Yeah, that was reallyinteresting.

Speaker 2 (36:21):
That was a really interesting little right detour
they took when they were innumenor.
They went to, like the libraryof lore or something like that,
and they matched up this symbolthat galadriel had been seeing
for who knows how long, like inregards to sauron, with the.

Speaker 1 (36:37):
You know the shape of the mountain range that will
eventually become Mordor right,which is it's like a beacon of
sorts like go there, that kindof thing yeah and if you're evil
, we got a spot for you overthere prime real estate yeah, so
yeah, it's interesting.
It's like, wow, you know,because we know what what Mordor

(36:58):
looks like in Lord of the Rings.
It's, you know, devoid of grassand trees, it's all ash and all
burnt up, but like this is likethe grasslands, it almost looks
like rohan, you know aninteresting choice that they had
specifically with you know, theorcs that were inhabiting like
the underground area of thesouthlands.

Speaker 3 (37:17):
Is that we're not, we're not, we're not racist.
Here is is uruks they're.
I thought the uruks were laterno, you're thinking of the uruk
high, the orcs in this series.
Uh, get offended.
If you call them orcs, theyit's like a, it's a pejorative
term and they're just the uruksokay, very, very interesting.

Speaker 2 (37:35):
I don't think have have they gotten offended thus
far.
I must have, unless thathappens later.
You got you, man, you got youokay, all right, so the uruks,
thank you.

Speaker 3 (37:47):
I just, I just don't, I don't know, I don't like for
that kind of, that kind of talkon the podcast.
So this is 100 episodes, likeyou know what if we have?
Our audience is listening rightnow.
They're going to be veryoffended by what you just said
they're going to be very turnedoff.

Speaker 2 (38:04):
You know, just sitting there in in their like
darkness, just like brooding andtheir in their tunnels that
they're digging yeah, meat's offthe menu, boys.

Speaker 1 (38:13):
I thought that was interesting, that the way for
them to avoid sunlight is likedigging underground and then
that was cool and like tunnelingunder people's homes and then
like kidnapping them and makingthem dig dude.
That's insane yeah, I.

Speaker 2 (38:28):
What's really funny is that kind of happened in
brooklyn recently like not notnot oryx, but it's something
that actually happened, likeit's a real thing.
That happened in brooklynrecently where a Hasidic Jewish
community decided that, you know, like I guess they were
breaking off from their temple,so they were their own space

(38:50):
underneath Brooklyn and it was acrazy story.
And I remember there was like aguy online who, like for like a
year, was saying that there'sJews under his floorboard, like
speaking in Hebrew, and andnobody believed him.
They thought that he was justbeing a racist, but like that
was actually something that washappening.

Speaker 1 (39:11):
He thought that some boar rat thing was mean.
Dude, I have to look this storyup next Because it sounds
hilarious it happened, likewithin the past year, it's the
funniest story you must havedied laughing when you found out
about that yeah, no, there's.

Speaker 2 (39:29):
There's like footage, it's it's crazy, it's like it's
really funny, like it's just awild thing that happened.
So that was in the back of myhead when theo was saying that
there's mice in the floor and hestarts attacking the floor.

Speaker 3 (39:41):
It's like somebody's sitting there trying to put
their kids around the southlandsand they hear the black speech
under, under, under thefloorboards yeah, oh, those mice
are talking again.

Speaker 2 (39:51):
Oh man, but I do think that that was really cool.
I thought that the way thatthey portrayed the uruks at this
point was just fascinating, andI liked that they couldn't get
into sunlight.
I thought, you know, likegiving them like vampire powers
and like weaknesses was kind offun.

Speaker 1 (40:05):
Right, well, and they've always kind of shied
away, shied away, right, I thinkit was the Uruk-hai that were
the only ones that could kind ofrun out in the daylight.
Correct?
Yeah, that's a good point.

Speaker 2 (40:16):
Yeah, I forgot about that.
Yeah, so that was kind of thewhole.
Yeah, that's why the Fellowshipwas like so surprised that they
were being chased by Orc wasbecause they're not supposed to
be, you know.
So that was, that was cool.

(40:36):
So seeing that in this episodewas really interesting.
And we have so Arandir andBronwyn have this like unspoken
relationship where they justmeet up every now and then, just
meet up every now and then andyou know, arandir and elf
bronwyn, a, just a female humanof presumably low birth, you
know, like she's she's just in avillage, you know she's not,
yeah, of any particular royalline or anything like that.
It's a very interesting dynamicto have developed and obviously

(40:57):
bronwyn and theo are likechastised within town because of
her relationship to the PointyEar, as they call them.
You know, like they like to,you know, throw derogatory marks
at the elves and stuff, becausethey've basically been
occupying the land ever sincethey were, you know, faithful to

(41:18):
Sauron back in the day.

Speaker 1 (41:19):
Yeah, yeah, that their like ancestors were were
pretty much they had sided withsoran morgoth, that was yeah, so
like that bothered the humans.
They're like you know, why areyou guys still here?
Why are you watching over us?
Like that was so long ago andyou know, and in a way, like
he's kind of right, the blood oftheir ancestors still kind of

(41:40):
run through their veins there'sa scene in the final episode
that we are going to cover today, where what's the guy's name,
waldron I think, was like theinnkeeper.

Speaker 2 (41:49):
He is very clearly still loyal to Sauron and it's
almost, it's almost like youthink of, like the Nazis that
fled to Argentina.
And you know, south America,you still have people who are
totally, you know, still Nazis.
You, america, you still havepeople who are totally, you know
, still Nazis, you know, andthey're totally okay with it,
and they like to look back atthe glory days of their
ancestors who moved to thecountry.

(42:10):
And you, I kind of felt thesame vibe was being introduced
with these people who are still,at least quietly, faithful to
Sauron and his Oryx.
At this point, right, like, didyou get a similar vibe to that?
Is that what I'm supposed to be?
You know?
Kind of attributing that to, itseems that they're.

Speaker 3 (42:29):
The thing I find that to be interesting is the
townsfolk are very we'resupposed to see them as
closed-minded.
We're not even supposed to kindof see their way like.
They immediately come off askind of like racist towards elf
and closed-minded.
The elves don't present to belike some sort of police state
where, like the villagers can'tdo as they please.
It's just like the elves arethere just making sure nothing

(42:51):
happens.
I don't think they're roundinganybody up the southlanders
right, yeah destitute.
I don't know if waldron is loyalto sauron or knows that they're
destitute and not doing well,and if they pledge to Sauron,
then they can get out of this.
You know, it's like if a groupof people openly picked somebody
who is terrible to be a leaderjust because they thought he

(43:13):
would get him out of something.
I think that that's the point.

Speaker 2 (43:15):
No, it never happens in real life.
Never happens in real life.
But I do like the analogy thereand I appreciate that fantasy
and science fiction is able tokind of like shine a mirror on
history and on present eventsand current events in ways that
aren't super in your face but,if you like, dig deep into them.

(43:36):
It kind of explores how peoplethink and how people react when
pushed against a wall.
So, yeah, I thought that waspretty cool.
What do you think about the Iguess, star-crossed love affair
or not like really a fair butlike love of bronwyn and arandir
, like what does he see in her,what does she see in him?
Is it?

Speaker 1 (43:56):
all right go ahead, go ahead I was gonna say like
there was obviously somethingthat was already established
kind of there when we first meetthem, you know, and so there's
a lot that we just don't knowabout like their relationship.
Obviously, you know he's beenaround and so maybe there were

(44:16):
some pleasantries over time.
They got to talk and got toknow each other and then you
know a relationship kind ofblossomed from that.
But other than that, you know,there's not much to go off of
other than, like some of thestuff that we have seen, like he
came back and he saved Bronwynand Theo from these orcs that

(44:37):
were chasing, that were chasingTheo, and then she comes to help
and then like he kind of likehelps save them both from from
them.

Speaker 2 (44:45):
So that was such a cool scene I had to like rewind
it because I was just likeamazed at like the the slow
motion action in that scenewhere, like he pushes theo, he
sees an arrow coming in slowmotion, he catches it and then
notches it and shoots it rightback, blowed my mind.
I I had to rewind and just likeuh that was very much so like a
legolas thing that you would seeyes, yes, and I think that was

(45:08):
like stuff like that is whatmade legolas my favorite
character back when, you know,lord of the rings was a thing,
and that's why, like, for thelongest time, I was always
playing like rangers and huntersand characters like hanzo and
overwatch who had a bow.
Like I'm just drawn to that,like as, as soon as I see a bow,
I'm just like, that's me.

Speaker 3 (45:24):
You're drawn to a bow , I'm drawn to a bow.
I see what you did there.
I see what you did there.

Speaker 2 (45:31):
Also, I think that Bronwyn is just.
You know, she's a single mother, but she's also extremely
well-spoken.
She's like a powerful woman whodoesn't like take crap from
anyone, and I think that hereally respects that.

Speaker 1 (45:43):
You know, despite all of the shortcomings that were
laid upon her, she's like astrong woman yeah, aside from
her like obviously being poor,like she's still, she's still
like well kept, you know, likeshe's, like she's not really all
that unkempt, you know oh yeah,no, she's, she's, she's a
beautiful lady.

Speaker 2 (46:00):
We can, we can say that.
But yeah, so, speaking ofstrong women, we should head
over to Durin and his wife andthe Elrond story.
That is quite interesting.
We have Celebrimbor introducedto Elrond early on and he is
tasked to help create a greatforge, which you know.

(46:22):
I can only assume what theyforge in this great forge, but
I'm assuming it goes on fingers.
So a lot of anticipation goinginto whatever caleb rimbor's got
up his sleeve.
It makes me think, like, howdid he come to this idea to
create this forge?
Is he being manipulated behindthe scenes?

(46:42):
Are a bunch of people beingsubtly manipulated to an end
that sauron is eventually goingto, like you know, hold over
them?
I don't know.
I again, I have not watchedpast episode five of the first
season at this point and I onlyre-watched up until episode four
this time around, but I didreally, really love elrond's

(47:03):
relationship with the, theprince of the dorvan nation,
durin.
What are your guys thoughts onon that?

Speaker 1 (47:09):
and, like you know him having to, like, show his
worth to his friend who hehasn't seen in 20 years yeah,
and you know I I just thoughtthat was so interesting that you
know durin is right like 20years is a long time and it may
not be much time to an elf butfor a lot of us, like dude, like
for a human, even dwarves Iknow they live longer but like,

(47:32):
not as long as an elf does.
But dude, like 20 years, likethat's not pocket change, like
to an elf, like it's like dude.
You didn't even come to see meand the man got married, the man
has kids and like Elrond wasn'tthere so he was very much so,
like he was in the right to beupset with Elrond and I mean,
come on, dude, like you knowdwarves, especially in the Lord

(47:57):
of the Rings universe, likethey're stubborn people and like
when you're on their bad side,like you really got to work to
get on their good side, as theyreally got to work to get on
their good side as an old dudewho's coughing right now because
I'm old.

Speaker 3 (48:06):
I just want you to know.
I kind of picked Elrond's sidehere.
You know I get it, I'm theelder statesman on this.
There are times where I'll seea friend who lives not that far
and I'll be like, hey, it'scrazy that we haven't seen each
other in 14 months.
So I felt Elrond's side, I feltattacked by Durin.
I was like, yeah, I've missedstuff.
All right, buddy, we're old nowthis is what happens, right,

(48:26):
you know, you call.

Speaker 2 (48:27):
Yeah, we're not in high school anymore.

Speaker 3 (48:28):
Now you call your friend three or four days after
their birthday, and that'sacceptable.

Speaker 1 (48:35):
Well, I think it depends on how like strong that
relationship was.
Like I feel like it's okay ifit's like, you know, maybe a
friend, but like not somebodysuper close but like you know,
like being married and havingkids is definitely like
something huge in in likepeople's lives.
And so if you see somebody thatyou know you deem as a really

(48:58):
close friend, that doesn't evenlike reach out, then like I
would feel some type of way likeokay, well, does this person
not want me in their livesanymore?
And then you also have tounderstand that you know he kind
of he knew that elrond wasthere for for more than just the
reason to catch up with oldfriends, and so he felt that and

(49:19):
so that kind of was like thatwas like insult to injury, like
okay, well, you're showing uphere out of nowhere you want
something from you wantsomething from me but you you
don't even have.
Like you know, you weren't eventhere from important parts of my
life.
But then you want this.

Speaker 2 (49:34):
My question is.
My question is did durin sendan invite?
Because that's, that's a bigyou know?
Like, how was I supposed toknow?
I haven't seen you in 20 years.
I didn't know you got married.
Like, come on.

Speaker 1 (49:44):
I mean, I guess, with the suspension of disbelief,
possibly, you know, I'd like toimagine getting an invite from.
It was a stone.
It was like a stone tablet Likethey like chipped it out and
they like sent it.
I liked the tree that he hadthere, yeah he gave him the tree

(50:05):
.

Speaker 2 (50:06):
Oh yeah, like the sapling that he had given Elrond
or he had given Durin years ago.
He had grown Even in the dark.
That was cool.

Speaker 1 (50:14):
But it shows how much that friendship meant a lot to
him, because his wife was like.
He treats it like it's histhird child.

Speaker 2 (50:21):
And what's cool is that he doesn't have a heavily
adorned home, so that is like astatement piece.
It's a huge statement piece.
One home so that is like astatement piece.
Like it's a huge statementpiece.
One corner of his house is justthis massive tree, so it
obviously means a lot to him.

Speaker 1 (50:33):
He thinks about this elrond guy every day and he's
always talking to his wife, disa, about how much he misses this
guy and he doesn't show up, Ilike when they were talking
about the story of like how theymet or like how elrond had
saved him, but doran said thathe had saved Elrond.
So yeah, that like little jaband back and forth that they had

(50:54):
and their friendship was reallyfun.
I do, I actually did like thatfriendship a lot.
You know, it's just like twocompletely different people and
you know they kind of like sawthrough their differences and
established something reallyspecial.

Speaker 2 (51:08):
What are your thoughts on Disa?
I think the idea of someonesinging to the mountain to like
almost pray to it, which I guessit's a really fascinating idea,
a notion because, like dwarves,live their entire lives within
stone, so obviously they wouldmake that their gods in a way,
you know.

Speaker 1 (51:27):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (51:28):
So being able to communicate with the mountains
and express that in interestingways.
I thought that was really cooland that kind of ties into like
the intro of the show itself,like the actual cinematic
introduction that they playbefore every episode.
Oh yeah, you have I don't knowthat there's like an actual term
for it, I'm sure there is.
I don't know that there's likean actual term for it, I'm sure
there is.
But certain vibrations, certainharmonic frequencies, like,

(51:52):
develop different patterns insand and this is like an actual
phenomenon.
Like, if you get like a squareplate and you play different
rhythms or different frequencies, the different frequencies will
come up with differentgeometric shapes within the sand
.
And that's what was happeningin the introduction to this show
, and I think that has somethingto do with what deesa's up to

(52:13):
in terms of, like, being able toharmonically resonate with the
mountain itself.
I think that that's just a coolconcept and I don't know if
they're going to explore that atall, but it's something that's
always fascinated me rich.

Speaker 3 (52:23):
Do you guys have said that the, the deesa, doesn't
have a beard?
If I remember correctly, gimleysaid that.
You know there, uh, there aredwarf women, but uh, that since
they have beards, they're notoften recognized.

Speaker 2 (52:34):
And this, this dwarf woman, was very clean, shaven,
well, I mean she does have likestubble under her, like, like
jowls like not necessarily likea beard, but like there's a
little bit of like, theydefinitely shaved, they shave,
they have all right, or like a,like a Brazilian wax or
something every once in a while.

Speaker 3 (52:52):
She's a shaver, Probably not like Brazilian like
Rohirrim wax or Numenorean wax,something like that.
Right yeah.

Speaker 2 (53:01):
Give me the Balrog wax, please.

Speaker 3 (53:04):
That looks hot.
You got to be careful.

Speaker 2 (53:06):
Too deep and too greedy.
It's interesting you neverreally think about when they
first discover a new ore, likeMithril, yeah, but you could
tell immediately when theyopened the chest and they didn't
show it to the audience, butyou knew what it was.
What else are the dwarvesmining at this point?
Yeah, so it's kind of coolknowing that this was a unique

(53:29):
thing that they had justdiscovered.
Elrond doesn't even know itexists at this point, but yeah,
I like that too.
I thought that was really cooland I really like the secrecy
that Durin like requests ofElrond.
I don't know if Elrond's goingto keep it.
I assume he's a stand-up guy.
I wouldn't put it past him tokeep it.
But I think someone else isgoing to find out about it.

(53:55):
I think keller brimbor is goingto find this, or you know,
hanging out in in his belongingsand like I'm gonna use this to
make a ring, a very special ring.
So it might happen rich.
Don't tell me if it does, butkeep it safe, keep it secret
he's gonna keep it safe.
He's gonna keep it secret.
We're gonna we're gonna touchon this later also like.

Speaker 1 (54:07):
So now, like you know , we're we're coming up on an
hour and 10 minutes as ofrecording, so we talked a little
bit about that.
I don't know if you hadanything else that you wanted to
say, but we have a whole otherside of the story that we
haven't even touched on it,which is the harfoots.

Speaker 2 (54:22):
Yes, the harfoots and that, that crazy guy that falls
out of the sky.
I really I like aspects of whatthey're doing with the harfoots
, like there are likeinteresting qualities that are
very, you know, hobbit centricyes that they exhibit.
They're very nomadic people.

Speaker 1 (54:39):
They hide away from men and stuff, but they don't
like adventures and, likethere's always one, there's
always some hobbit out there or,uh, some harfoot hobbit.
You know that wants to dosomething.
You know they want to go outand adventure and and nori is
definitely one of those you knowinquisitive types that wants to

(55:01):
like know more and wants to seewhat things are about I love
that her name is.

Speaker 3 (55:06):
So she's brandy foot and I wonder if at some point,
like there becomes a looserelation to mary in some way.
Isn't he like brandy brandybuck?

Speaker 2 (55:15):
oh yeah, yeah, I mean , what's interesting is that,
like their names are all verysimilar, so I'm assuming these
families will you know intermixat some point yeah like spread
out.
But we know that hobbits in thelord of the rings era are very
stuck in wherever they are in inhobbiton and the shire.
Like they, they've made thattheir home.

(55:36):
They live there.
There's no adventuring pastthat point.
They don't go on.
You know caravans and stuff,but the harfoots in this era are
nomadic.
They don't have a home.
They're constantly on the moveand I think that's kind of cool.
What do you guys think?

Speaker 1 (55:49):
I like that they sound irish, yeah, so they have
a very like irish accent andlike there's some people that
have like scottish accents andthen, uh like british accents
and stuff.
It's so like you can tell thatlike all of this takes place in
some european type, you knowland I think it's interesting

(56:10):
that you mentioned that becauseI wonder they do have different
accents some of them.

Speaker 2 (56:14):
Some have more of a Scottish brogue than, like, a
British accent and stuff likethat.
So I'm wondering if there aredifferent collections of
Harfoots that exist in the worldthat you know.
They travel with each other.
They kind of break off and theygo their own route and these
different parties collect indifferent areas.
As they are, you know they'renomads, so it'll be interesting
to see where they land.

(56:35):
You know, eventually they'regonna have to settle down into
the shire and you know therivers of that area.
So yeah, because you know,prior to them becoming shire
folk or you know hobbitsspecifically, they're gonna end
up becoming that.
They'll land on wherever youknow.
Smiegel and his friend were youknow they were it really is yeah

(56:58):
, we'll see what happens there.
What do you guys all right?
One thing that I I particularlydid not like and I guess it
makes sense for them, but Ithere's.
There's one scene that, like Ireally cringe at.
It's like something like wewalk in a line and nobody gets
left behind.
We walk in line, nobody getsleft behind, and it's like
wheels on the bus go round andround.

Speaker 1 (57:18):
You know that's their like.
The cub scout chant, you knowtheir little mantra dude it.

Speaker 2 (57:24):
I, I rolled my eyes, I, and I think I, I I rolled it
last time I saw it, I don't knowwhy, and I'm thinking about it.
I'm like this is very much likesomething a hobbit would do,
but I feel like hobbits wouldhave a little bit more
colloquial prowess with theirwords, like Bilbo was very
eloquent in his delivery oflines.

Speaker 1 (57:47):
But I guess not all hobbits were.
I mean, but, dude, like, look,they're living in hobbiton,
they're in the shire, they're alot more established.
So I'm pretty sure that youknow they have stuff established
.
These people are very nomadic.
They're very, like you know,they're living this, like you
know, kind of gypsy lifestyleand yeah, like moving, moving
along, you can't you can't, youcan't look for for good poetry

(58:10):
from the hunter-gatherercivilizations.

Speaker 3 (58:13):
You have to wait till they become agrarian before the
beauty and splendor of thehills and the flowers really
starts rolling out in their art.

Speaker 2 (58:21):
Okay, that's words of wisdom.
I will allow the Harfoots todevelop as the series goes on,
but I do like them for the mostpart and I really like Nori and
I really like Nori's friends,their little relationship.
It's very Frodo and Sam.
Yeah, poppy, it's very Frodoand Sam.

Speaker 1 (58:39):
Yeah, absolutely, and they're very curious, and you
know that I want to kind of seewhat's going on here, because
they go and check to see the manthat falls out of the sky.
You know, the stranger.

Speaker 2 (58:53):
Yeah, so rich.
Please, please, don't tell uswho the stranger is, cause I
actually don't know.
Still, I have my suspicions,but I don't know for certain.

Speaker 1 (59:01):
Yeah, I haven't looked at myself to.
I'll keep it safe.

Speaker 2 (59:06):
I I know, you know, I know about like sauron that was
all over the internet.
I'm not going to talk about ithere, but I don't know about the
stranger, so I'm I'm interestedto see, like, what they do with
that, because it's obvious thathe was one of the valar or the
mayar, basically like angels oferu iluvatar, who was sent to
middle earth to basically guidethe people.

(59:28):
So I'm guessing he's one of thefive wizards, at the very least
yeah he exhibits somecharacteristics that gandalf
also exhibited.
Like he speaks to insects, he isobviously very close to hobbits
and like little folk like that.

Speaker 1 (59:45):
That's like very gandalf.
You know, I was thinking thatthat same thing they probably
have already named.
Whoever the stranger is at thispoint, dakota and I are just
speculating.
You know so, we know thatthere's a whole, the rest of
season one and the entirety ofseason two, you know.
So we're coming at this withlike fresh eyes, so we're
covering it as we're watching it, and so, but yeah, no, I, I

(01:00:08):
totally agree, and and it and it, for me it's like, makes sense,
because he has such a goodrelationship with the hobbits
and the lord of the rings thatit's almost like this is where
that love of the, the shire folkand stuff would establish would
be like I came here and theyhelped me.
They were the first ones thereto help me yes, yeah, and I

(01:00:28):
think that that that is a verystrong point towards the Gandalf
line of thought.

Speaker 2 (01:00:33):
But you know, he could be Radagast.
It would be an interestingtwist of fate if he turned out
to be Saruman.
But I'd also like to meet thetwo other wizards that are never
named, at least to my knowledge, in Tolkien's work the Blue
Wizards, so I don geese work.
The blue wizards, so I don'tknow.

Speaker 1 (01:00:52):
I'm most curious about the stranger.
When it comes to the rings ofpower right now, the one thing
rich is in the background likedying, because he probably knows
the answer I.

Speaker 3 (01:00:57):
The only thing I will say is that, like I think that
you have and this is why Italked about how, like after
where I am, and then going backand watching it, I I appreciate
the show so much more.
It's just you get like smackedwith what in the first four
episodes easily.
I mean, if I say 40 characters,I don't think I'm far off you

(01:01:18):
have what three to fourdifferent locations and then you
have two mysteries who is thisguy and who is that guy and I
just think that it was reallyambitious and I think it can
easily turn people off if theydon't really want to get into it
.
You know, like I think thatthat's why maybe look, I was

(01:01:39):
watching house of the dragon atthe same time and I, because I'm
a slave to routine, keptwatching brings a power, no
matter what.
But I was enjoying house of thedragon much more in that first
season, you know, and even the.
I was enjoying house of thedragon much more in that first
season, you know, and even the,even the first half of the first
season.
Comparing both of them.
There was no comparison.
And you know, I and I enjoy, Imean, you know, give me
everything, give me dragons,give me magic.

(01:02:01):
I love all that stuff and I canlike it in different ways, but
I do think that, like, what theywere doing here was just super
ambitious and creating so muchkind of confusion that it was a
little jarring, unless you'rekind of really locked as, as the
kids say now locked in lmao,you know yeah, for real, for

(01:02:21):
real.

Speaker 1 (01:02:22):
but yeah, you're definitely right and it's the
way that like society is kind oflike with the growth of the
Internet and stuff, like wereally want to know like the
answers to things almost rightaway, whereas I do like we
watched like an entire seriesthat was comprised of like one
giant mystery and then severalsmaller mysteries and lost, you

(01:02:44):
know, and and so like we didn'tcare about it.
But it's like now it kind oflike bothers us, like oh my gosh
, they didn't explain this, theyexplain that.

Speaker 2 (01:02:53):
well, maybe at some point they will, you know,
hopefully, fingers crossed youknow, speaking of which, there's
like a little anecdotal thingthat jen and I, my wife,
experienced where we werewatching parks and rec and one
of the characters says he'stalking about Twin Peaks and he
has a line where he says youknow, I was re-watching the end

(01:03:14):
of Twin Peaks and it all makessense, it all comes together.
I don't know how they did it,but it all comes together.
And I was like, you know, Ishould really watch Twin Peaks.
I've never watched Twin Peaksbefore.
So my wife and I think there wastwo seasons of Twin Peaks and
nothing was answered.
It had the biggest cliffhangerI've ever experienced in a TV
show and then the show wascanceled and it's the craziest

(01:03:37):
like non ending of all time.
And I thought that that wasjust such a I know this is like
really off on a tangent, but Ithought it was such a funny like
gag on Parks and Rec's behalfto trick me into watching Twin
Pe peaks so that I would beconfused, as the writers who
were, who were clearly let downby twin peaks.
But anyway, I hope that thatdoes not happen with lord of the

(01:03:58):
rings, the rings of power.
But uh, I think we're gonnaclose out our first episode
there, unless we have anythingelse to say.
Any any final thoughts on thefirst four episodes, guys, I
mean.

Speaker 1 (01:04:07):
So so far I have been enjoying it a lot more.
This like kind of second time Istopped around the same point
that you stopped.
I think I stopped at four.
So the next like few episodesare going to be like things that
I haven't seen at all totallyfresh, nice nice rich.

Speaker 3 (01:04:23):
I, I'm really enjoying it.
The rewatch is super fun.
I obviously need to slow down alittle bit, so my apologies on
that one, but I, I, I really I'mreally enjoying it.
I'm telling you, like, for me,going back to it, it's, it's.
It reminds me of when I startedreading game of thrones.
I think I got 80 pages in and Ijust got overwhelmed.
So I watched half of the seasonmaybe, like yeah, but I watched

(01:04:46):
about half the season and I wasable to then put faces to all
the characters and then I wentback to the book and then I was
able to really take off and it'salmost like getting and you
know what?
I think it's a gamble, becauseI think that modern audiences,
like you were saying, anthony,are so impatient, they just want
to know everything right away,and mayhaps we're conditioned
that way, myself included to thepoint where now I'm sitting at

(01:05:07):
a point where I'm excited tohear what you guys are going to
say.
I'm really excited for you guysto watch it.
I want to end this episode andbe like no guys, but really go
binge it now Because I want toget into everything.
So I appreciate you guys havingme on for this monumental
episode.

Speaker 1 (01:05:25):
It's been a blast.
Yes, episode 100.
We did it.

Speaker 2 (01:05:31):
This is actually the last episode, guys.
Thank you all for listening,leaving it on a rings of power.

Speaker 1 (01:05:38):
Cliffhanger, just like.

Speaker 2 (01:05:41):
Twin Peaks.
Twin Peaks style guys, thankyou so much for listening to us
here for our 100th episode ofProject Ecology.
Please be sure to give thisepisode a review, if you are
capable of doing so, and,specifically, if you're going to
give us a review, you're goingto have to give us I think it
was what four stars, three stars, anthony.

Speaker 1 (01:06:01):
Oh man, never.
It's got to be five, but notjust any old five stars, it's
got to be a juicy five starreview.
You know, type some stuff if itallows you, if not, don't worry
about it.
But as long as it's a juicyfive star review, it bumps us up
in the uh, the algorithm andand uh brings in more listeners

(01:06:22):
think about, you know, thetomato that that guy bit into in
lord of the rings, and, andthat's the juice that we're
talking about here.

Speaker 2 (01:06:29):
It's got to be five stars, guys.

Speaker 1 (01:06:31):
Are you talking about Denethor?

Speaker 2 (01:06:34):
When Denethor yeah, when Denethor, like during that
song that Pippin's singing.
Good times, Guys.
If you want to check out any ofour socials, please be sure to
visit the show notes down below.
You'll find anything all of ourlocations.
Rich will also link you, ifyou'd like, sure, and you can go
ahead and follow rich and seehis mets escapades, because he's

(01:06:55):
got a lot of mets escapades, alot, a lot of them, guys.
Thank you so much.
Have a good one bye y'all.